The Importance of the Little Things

One doesn't fully appreciate the importance of something until it is done badly. At that point one can gauge the importance of that thing by how mad or frustrated they are by it being done in a way that isn't up to par with expectations. I've recognized this in some capacity throughout the entirity of my life, but this idea was made quite apparent this morning at church. It wasn't the pastors who bothered me, although I could make a point about the sermon being somewhat lacking in composition. It wasn't something the congregation did to offset me, either. Believe it or not, my issue was with the organist. I never appreciated how important the organist was in leading worship until today when our service was chosen to be none other than the Order of Matins. While the organist showed skill and practice with the hymns, she completely botched the musical portions of the Order of Matins, which is about 90% of the service. It wasn't just a little off, either. The timings and tunes were so off that the congregation as a whole could not follow along properly and the majority of the service consisted of the congregation making inarticulate sounds that sounded like everyone was speaking in different tongues of languages long dead. Now, not being familiar enough with the music is alright on its own, but when that lack of familiarity drags down something as important as a whole congregations' worship there's definitely a distinct problem.

Now, my point isn't to belittle the organist. I'm sure there's a perfectly good explanation for her poor performance today. What I want to illustrate is how frustrated I was and therefore showing how important the musical aspect of a worship service is to me. Upon reflection, I realized that I felt I did a disservice to God by performing poorly in church. Maybe it's just the Lutheran in me, but I felt guilty for that. I began concentrating on the organist's performance rather than what I was singing and for whom I was singing. I'll keep this in mind for when I begin to space out during church in the future.

-Josh [aka: Rath]